During my junior year at Central High School, our wonderful A.P. English teacher, Edith Wiles, was reading the A.E. Housman poem To an Athlete Dying Young aloud to the class. Before opening the floor for discussion, she asked a simple question, “does this remind you all of anyone?” Ms. Wiles didn’t say “y’all.”
Though my mind was already on the person I was 99.99% sure she was asking about, I didn’t raise my hand, I didn’t say a word. I was pretty sure no one else would, either. Ms. Wiles, looking directly at me, said “well, I was thinking of Johnny Payne.”
Oakie Pickard, Bobcat coach Frank “Boomer” Boring, Johnny Payne
Ms. Wiles knew Johnny was my cousin. She was already teaching at Central more than 20 years prior when Johnny and my mother, Cindy Payne, were students of the same class of 1961. She had seen more than a few of the Payne family walk the halls of CHS, and I was used to her calling me by my mom’s, aunts’ and grandmother’s names. I just rolled with it. And on that day, I held back a quiet tear for a man I never knew. I just knew how much my family and his friends loved and missed him, regardless of the legendary status he held in the annals of Bobcat athletics.
But what a star he was. Though he is best known for his feats as a tailback playing football, Johnny was a triple-sport letterman. He played football, basketball and ran track throughout high school, even played baseball his freshman and sophomore years. He was president of his senior class, unsurprisingly voted most athletic and captain of both the football and basketball teams his senior year, when the football Bobcats won the Class AAA championship. The team’s only loss that 1960 season was on a road trip versus Pensacola High School in Florida.
The newspaper clippings of his high school exploits filled three scrapbooks. For several decades he held the single season rushing record in Knoxville with over 1,900 yards his senior year. Among his many accolades, he was voted Knoxville Interscholastic League Back of the Year, made The Knoxville News Sentinel’s All-County and All East Tennessee teams as well as making the All-Southern squad. Pretty soon the recruiters came calling, and Johnny signed with the North Carolina Tar Heels along with teammates Don Loveday and his best friend, Oakie Pickard.
Johnny Payne with two hands full of trophies.
In late summer 1961, Johnny left Fountain City with a world of expectations riding on his young shoulders. A member of the freshman squad at NC, things got off to a rough start for him as he came down with a bad case of the flu. He was able to show his stuff in a couple of games after being moved to a wingback position, catching several touchdowns. He also returned a kickoff against the Clemson frosh for a touchdown. But by the end of October, he’d withdrawn from school and returned home. His stated reasons at the time were struggles with his math and Spanish classes, but that he intended to return.
In a KNS story at the time, our own Marvin West quoted North Carolina coach Jim Hickey: “You can’t imagine how sorry we are to see Johnny Payne go home. We believed he could become a great little footballer. We worked hard to get him, and we hated to see him go.”
Imagine being 18 years old and having every move you made scholastically, athletically and otherwise making headlines. As a star athlete, it is to be expected, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a lot of pressure on a young person.
As in football, Payne wore number 10 lettering in basketball for the Bobcats
Despite his stated intentions, Johnny never played organized football again. He returned to Fountain City and the home of my great uncle Bill and aunt Alma, to his younger brothers Herb and Dennis. They lived on College Park Lane where the boys could run out the backyard to Pruden Field at what is now Gresham Middle School.
Johnny went to work for the state highway department, and by November of 1963 had married his sweetheart, Carol. They moved out to Cline Road in Halls. Not long after, Johnny noticed a knot in his neck. By the spring of 1964, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, not yet one of the more survivable cancers as it is today. He would battle it for a little more than three years before succumbing to it on Nov. 17, 1967, just nine months after his only child, Steve, was born.
Dennis, nine years younger than the brother he calls his hero, said he used to go out and spend the night on occasion and fondly remembers the times he and Johnny would wander the woods nearby with his dog Bo.
“Lord, I looked up to him,” he said. “He was a really special person, humble and kind hearted.”
Brother Herb said Johnny was the poster child of the “all American” boy growing up in the ’50s. Indeed, he was Fountain City’s favorite son. But beyond all the achievements on and off the field, what was truly lost over 55 years ago was a much beloved husband and father, brother and son, nephew, cousin and friend. Johnny was inducted into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame in July 1992.
Beth Kinnane is the community news editor for KnoxTNToday.com